Final Whistle: Pat Summitt, who coached a women’s basketball dynasty at the University of Tennessee for nearly 40 years, has died of Alzheimer’s disease at age 64.
Summitt raised the profile of women’s sports. With 1,098 wins and 208 losses between 1974 and 2012, she had the most victories of any NCAA Division I basketball team, male or female. She had eight national championships.
Summitt announced in 2011 that she had early-onset Alzheimer’s and retired.

I’m With Her: Democratic Party pit bull Elizabeth Warren speaking in Cincinnati yesterday called Donald Trump “a small, insecure money grubber.”

Warren wields a sharper verbal knife than candidate Hillary Clinton. She taunted, “Now, Donald Trump says he’ll make America great again … It’s stamped on the front of his goofy hats. You want to see goofy? Look at him in that hat.”

Warren appears to be assuming the role of both late night host and bad cop for the Clinton campaign. “When Donald Trump says ‘great,’ I ask: ‘great for who, exactly?'” she said. “When Donald says he’ll make America great, he means greater for rich guys just like Donald Trump. That’s who Donald Trump is. … And you have to watch out for him, because he’ll crush you into the dirt.”

Trump has fought back against Warren calling her “Pocahontas” for her claim that she is part American Indian. “She said she’s 5 percent Native American. She was unable to prove it,” Trump said. “She used the fact that she was Native American to advance her career. Elizabeth Warren is a total fraud. I know it.”

Messing With Texas: Some Texas abortion clinics say they plan to reopen after yesterday’s Supreme Court decision.

In a 5-3 decision the Court struck down critical parts of the Texas abortion law that would have closed most abortion clinics in the state. The ruling is one of the court’s most crucial on abortion in more than 30 years and it means that similar laws in other states cannot stand.

In 2013 the Texas legislature passed a law, claiming it was for the benefit of women’s safety, requiring that all abortion clinics must have facilities meeting the standards of a surgery center. The law also required all doctors performing the procedure to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.

Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Breyer said, “Neither of these provisions offers medical benefits sufficient to justify the burdens upon access that each imposes. Each places a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a previability* abortion, each constitutes an undue burden on abortion access, and each violates the federal Constitution.”

*We had to look it up. That’s an abortion performed while the fetus is unable to survive outside the womb.

Honest Graft: The Court also threw out the corruption conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. He was convicted of accepting $175,000 worth of luxury stuff, loans, and vacations in exchange for helping a businessman named Jonnie R. Williams, Sr. The gifts were legal under Virginia law, which is hard to believe, and the court ruled that they had no direct connection to a benefit bestowed by the then-governor.

Chief Justice John Roberts agreed, writing, “There is no doubt that this case is distasteful; it may be worse than that. But our concern is not with tawdry tales of Ferraris, Rolexes and ball gowns. It is instead with the broader legal implications of the government’s boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute.”

In short, $175,000 worth of stuff for a governor in office is not illegal or bribery.

Beetle Juice: Volkswagen has agreed to pay the US $14.7 billion for programming its diesel vehicles to defeat emissions tests in what is one of the biggest consumer settlements ever reached in this country. The settlement involving 475,000 vehicles includes $10.03 billion to buy back cars at their value before news broke about Volkswagen’s fraud.

Volkswagen cheated with 11 million vehicles around the world and the settlement helps only owners in the US.

Apology of the Week: Turkey has apologized for shooting down a threatening Russian fighter jet last November along the border of Turkey and Syria. Russia had imposed sanctions on Turkey and said they would not be lifted until Turkey said, “sorry.”

Pretty Bird: A Michigan prosecutor is considering whether to submit the testimony of a pet African Gray parrot that was present for a shooting in which a woman is accused of murdering her husband. But the parrot keeps repeating what may be the last words in a fatal domestic fight: “Don’t shoot,” followed by a choice expletive.

-30-